Far beyond the edge of the inhabited universe lies the Silent Planet, a fertile but isolated world rumoured to be the final resting place for a number of lost interplanetary expeditions. Despite the planet’s deadly reputation, legends of riches, vast resource deposits, and lost alien technology tempt those brave, or foolish, enough to take the risk. Will the Silent Planet’s latest batch of colonists quell its dangerous wildlife and hostile inhabitants, or will they end up as another in a long line of expeditions that have simply ‘gone silent’?

Description:Caitlin had inherited her parents’ blonde hair and her blue eyes. She was slender in build and not especially tall, even her youngest sibling had passed her up and he was likely still growing. The oldest of the four Mallory children, she was fairly attractive like her mother and had not been worn down yet by the years of hard work on a tramp salvage freighter.

Personality:Caitlin was usually a nice person and easy to get along with. But being the older of the four children, she often felt responsible and a need to be in control. She harbored some resentment from her two brothers in the middle as they left her playing baby-sitter for their youngest sibling and it delayed her own life plans in those teenage years. But she loved her brother Jaden and was protective of him. Even so, she was expected to take over when their parents retired and found herself thrust into a leadership role earlier than expected.

Background:Caitlin was the oldest of the Mallory children growing up on the tramp freighter Jillian’s Luck, named after one of their grandparents that she had never met. Mom and Pop Mallory ran the salvage type freighter as family business, raising their kids on board. But they also had crew that filled in important roles. As the children became adults, they had wanted them to stay aboard and replace the aging members of the crew. However, things did not work out that way for all the children.

Caitlin being the oldest was more babysitter than crew, waiting for the others to get older. Not being able to pass that duty to the next in line delayed her own apprenticeship training and tech schooling off the ship since the next two siblings were not on board. She became more of a generalist and still had to know mechanical things because of the age of the freighter and its purpose of salvage.

As the Jillian’s Luck became older (requiring more money on repairs and maintenance) and the bills on schooling for Caitlin and Jaden had to be paid, the cost of running the freighter became barely breaking even. Mom and Pop decided to cash it in for rights to colonize on a planet. Without having to pay crew, they figured the family could do it, particularly if the other two siblings could be convinced to come back. Once Jaden of age, he was sent to complete medical training as he was to replace the retiring medical officer from the freighter anyway. Caitlin was free to attend some more technical training then as well.

Caitlin had been arranged to marry another man (Stephen) hired on to join the colonization effort and their parents were looking for a young woman to eventually be paired with Jaden too. In preparation, the freighter was sold and used to purchase the equipment needed, pay off outstanding loans, and the colonization rights. They had gone off to get started while she and Jaden were still in schooling, intending for them to come on soon in a few months.

The supply run pilot was doing a run and found the colony folk all dead. There was evidence of violence, but nothing to indicate who did it. A least several days had gone by between supply runs and any evidence had disappeared. No one had any ideas who, but it must have been somebody on the planet.

She was away at school when the parents died. Insurance covered the funeral and other expenses with lawyers. The rights to colonize the planet were left to all four siblings equally, and either had to be unanimously sold or executed upon. At the funeral, they all gathered for the first time in years to learn of the inheritance and the conditions of keeping it.

Medi-Gel PacketCost: 50 CrWeight: 0.1 lbs.Medi-Gel is a gel-like substance designed to be applied directly to wounds in order to provide rapid healing, instantly curing 1d8+1 point of damage. Applying medi-gel to a wound is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity, or a full-round action if applied to an unconscious creature.

Repulsor SphereCost: 50 CrWeight: 0.1 lbs.A repulsor sphere is a single-use disposable shield generator designed to deflect incoming attacks. A small metallic sphere that can fit in the palm of your hand, it can be twisted apart as a standard action in order to activate it. On activation, the repulsor sphere creates a localized repulsion field around its user, providing a +2 deflection bonus to AC for 1 minute. The repulsor sphere is destroyed on activation, leaving only an empty metal shell.

Description:Jaden is teenager about 5ft 7 inches tall. He has blonde hair like his parents, and green eyes like his mother’s.

He is very quick on reacting, since on the ship anything could go wrong at any time, so he had to be ready. He is also pretty tough he was living by himself during training in the heavier gravity of the technologically advanced planet and had to face problems himself.

Personality:Jaden is very curious and collects whatever he finds. He is also a little talkative. He is good at healing people and is quick so people will be fine soon.

Background:Jaden Mallory, born on a freighter owned by his parents, always wanted to be a medic. As a child, he sometimes went to the medical officer and talked in his spare time. He helped the medic by getting him the medicine he wanted and when he needed Jaden to take care of sick crew members. As he grew older, he studied and trained to replace the retiring medical officer. The medical school was a very big campus built on a very technologically-advanced planet. He made some friends while he was at the campus, and really liked his classes too. While he was at that school, his parents died so he had to quit before completing his final lessons.

After hearing about his parents' death, Jaden came back to the freighter his family owned, and served as the new medic, until the siblings started colonizing. He decided that he could still be the medic when the four siblings would colonize the planet. But still he doesn’t remember much about the two older siblings in between himself and Caitlin since they left the ship. He would sometimes think about them in his sleep, but never really knew what they looked like. Caitlin was Jaden’s older sister that was on the ship with him.

Jaden also liked collecting technological things, like scraps of computers and pieces of laser pistols. He even almost created his own pistol, but Caitlin stopped him before he tested it.

Still trying to become a true medic, Jaden studies more about medical things and technology. He also takes care of a little gerbil he got near the school, and named him Cee Jay.

Description: Delvin was taller than average, standing a little over 6 foot. He lacks muscle, but makes up for speed and deftness. The gunslinger has bark brown hair that is somewhat long and slicked back half-way down his neck. Delvin possesses a pair of hazel eyes that look about with a cold and calculating gaze. A scruffy chin and matching mustache to form a goatee of Delvin's chin.

For dress, Delvin prefers to wear grey or brown long sleeve tunics with a vest over top and matching pant's on the bottom. The vest is replaced with armor if the gunslinger expects trouble. Also, the gunslinger wears a set of fingerless leather gloves for style.

Personality: Delvin can be quiet at times, but when fighting or when there is a need for action, he can be rather vocal. He can come across as blunt and uncouth at times, especially when he becomes short on impatience. The gunslinger prefers action rather than diplomacy. A trait that has landed him in some trouble in the past. Delvin is also not typically a nice person, and can be cold to get a point across.

Background: Delvin was the second oldest sibling and first boy in the Mallory family. Not that the latter had much barring on his upbringing. Once he was old enough to swing a wrench unsupervised, the boy was put to work assisting the family business. That business being plying the trade in the tramp freighter, Jillian's Luck.

Devlin turned out to have quite the rebellious streak in him. He was always getting in trouble and disagreements with his parents and siblings. Perhaps it was expectations and hardness of the Mallory parents, or the resentment of perceived unfair treatment, no one was never sure. The boy also had a bit of wanderlust, and believed there was more to life than the metal bulwarks and cramped quarters of a freighter. One of Devlin's few solaces was his Pa's pistols. He had learned to shoot as an early teenager, and discovered an aptitude for firearms. Delvin in his brashness, took to even wearing the pistol like a gunslinger of old. However, that landed him into big trouble was very short lived.

Eventually, the resentment and wanderlust grew too much. While the Jillian's Luck docked in a busy port station loading up for a run, Devlin swiped some credits and his dad's pistol, and left the freighter to pursue his own dreams.

Over the years, the young man moved around as a quasi drifter. He saw many worlds and such, but never staying too long in place. He fell in and out of the law, plying his rapidly improving skill with firearms as hired guard and sometimes gunman. Delvin is not proud of some of those experiences, but it has shaped the man he is today.

When word reached him that his younger brother disappeared attempting to follow his footsteps, Devlin felt guilty. The gunslinger began to devote his time in trying to track down his brother. He eventually found him, but the younger brother had drastically been changed. Shortly after that, the two found out about their parents passing. They decided to met up with Caitlin and Jaden and try to honor their parents will.

The entity that was once Rian Mallory still has his basic appearance. Mostly. Human, male, tall and leanly muscled. Fair skin and dark tousled hair. Intense dark eyes. High cheekbones, cleft chin.

Those things are the same.

The difference comes out more in his presence, in the way he holds himself, so still. The way he moves, with slow intent, utterly unhurried. The way he doesn’t blink. The way expressions do not flicker across his face. His eyes remain expressive, yes, but now his gaze is nearly a tangible thing, unnaturally focused and intent.

Cut him, and he bleeds black, a thick, a viscous syrup, the smell of it acrid.

Anger him, and his pupils and sclera flood with inky darkness, pooling to pure onyx.

The entity dresses as Rian Mallory once did, in heavy black combat boots that were only an affectation; practical spacer pants and a plain grey tee. The armored jacket is new, but the (red) bloodstains on it are relatively fresh.

Personality:

The entity that was once Rian Mallory is eerily calm. He has no startle reflex, no human twitches or tics or microexpressions, no habit of shrugging or nodding or shaking his head. His intense gaze does much speaking for him, his dark eyes shifting to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else, not looking away until he is satisfied.

He is always unhurried, slow to speak and deliberate in his movements. The entity has a sort of ruthless pragmatism to him, one that comes from possessing alien values, and he tells the truth to the exclusion of all else.

Strangely, perhaps unnervingly, he has a sense of humor. His smiles are deliberate things, unnaturally wide. His voice is low and smooth and lulling, his manner eerily hypnotic; it is hard to look away from him, hard not to listen. He has a way with words, his unique perspective offering up sometimes painfully accurate insights.

Background:

The entity that was once Rian Mallory was once simply Rian Mallory, second son and third child of the Mallory clan. They were salvagers who lived and worked on the tramp freighter Jillian’s Luck; the ship was their world and the freighter’s small crew their extended family. Rian Mallory grew up on the fringes of space, always traveling from once place to the next, meeting people then leaving them behind. Sometimes crew members left them too, retiring or moving on. The constant was Rian’s parents, and his siblings.

Caitlin was the oldest, then his brother Delvin, then him, then, when Rian was seven, Jaden came along.

Rian always sensed he wasn’t like the others. Caitlin had a knack for fixing things, and Delvin had a deadshot aim and a steady hand for firing guns. Even young Jaden showed a talent for treating wounds and taking care of people. But Rian had nothing. Or so he thought. He just liked people – talking to them, spending time with them, seeing their worlds through their eyes. More than once, the freighter’s departure from a station or outpost had to be delayed because Rian didn’t return to the ship in time.

Their parents were strict about things like that, and punished him, but it only encouraged him to do it more. He started to steal things from people as another way to rebel, and his parents punished him for that too. But no matter how much his father beat him, or how much his mother yelled at him, he didn’t stop.

His older brother Delvin liked to misbehave too, and one day, Delvin simply took off, leaving the freighter and the family behind. Rian was so impressed by this idea that he decided to do the same thing, and a few months after Delvin disappeared, when the Jillian’s Luck was on a stopover at a trading flotilla, Rian left the ship and never came back.

He met all kinds of people and did all kinds of things and got into all kinds of trouble. Eventually his exploits found him in prison, accused of a far worse crime than the one he’d actually committed. A corporation came along and paid for his indenture, and then made him…disappear.

The thinking was that no one would miss a death row criminal. And indeed, no one did. Rian Mallory would have simply vanished from the galaxy had it not been for the corporation’s mistake. They wanted test subjects for a military contract to explore the benefits of gene splicing alien DNA into human hosts. They could make better humans, was the thinking. Faster, smarter, healthier. But they didn’t fully realize the nature of the alien DNA sample they were working with. It was DNA, yes. But it was also a fully-formed alien intelligence. The alien was the DNA and the DNA was the alien.

Once infused with the alien DNA, Rian Mallory underwent some changes. He was no longer merely Rian Mallory, and the alien was no longer simply what it had been either, now fully conscious and aware in a way it hadn’t been before. They were now a joined entity, inseparable, forever fused into one consciousness.

The entity escaped, then drifted for a while, at loose ends and using Rian’s gift for stealing to survive. This was ultimately unsatisfying, however, so the entity decided to seek out Rian’s family. First, he found his brother Delvin, who was somewhat startled by the changes Rian had undergone. But Delvin accepted him, and together they sought out Caitlin and Jaden, who had some tragic news: their parents had disappeared and were presumed dead, lost on a silent planet.

It was Caitlin who had a proposal for all of them, and they all listened.

Ultimately, the entity that was once Rian Mallory agreed to accompany the others on their quest to colonize the planet that had claimed their parents’ lives.